monomaniac

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English[edit]

Pronunciation[edit]

Noun[edit]

monomaniac (plural monomaniacs)

  1. A person who is obsessed with a single thing, to the exclusion of other concerns.
    Synonym: fanatic
    • 1859, George Meredith, chapter 15, in The Ordeal of Richard Feverel. A History of Father and Son. [], volumes (please specify |volume=I to III), London: Chapman and Hall, →OCLC:
      To talk nonsense, or poetry, or the dash between the two, in a tone of profound sincerity, and to enunciate solemn discordances with received opinion so seriously as to convey the impression of a spiritual insight, is the peculiar gift by which monomaniacs, having first persuaded themselves, contrive to influence their neighbours, and through them to make conquest of a good half of the world, for good or for ill.
    • 1873, Horatio Alger, chapter X, in Bound to Rise:
      Harry knew now that the old man was crazy, or at least a monomaniac, and, though he seemed harmless enough, it was of course possible that he might be dangerous.
    • 1890, Arthur Conan Doyle, chapter 44, in The Firm of Girdlestone:
      He had never yet been able to determine whether the old man was a consummate hypocrite or a religious monomaniac.

Translations[edit]

Adjective[edit]

monomaniac

  1. Focused on one thing above all others.
    • 1851 November 14, Herman Melville, chapter 133, in Moby-Dick; or, The Whale, 1st American edition, New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers; London: Richard Bentley, →OCLC:
      ...then it was that monomaniac Ahab, furious with this tantalizing vicinity of his foe, which placed him all alive and helpless in the very jaws he hated; frenzied with all this, he seized the long bone with his naked hands, and wildly strove to wrench it from its gripe.

Translations[edit]

Related terms[edit]

Romanian[edit]

Etymology[edit]

Borrowed from French monomaniaque.

Adjective[edit]

monomaniac m or n (feminine singular monomaniacă, masculine plural monomaniaci, feminine and neuter plural monomaniace)

  1. monomaniac

Declension[edit]